What can your 9 year old cook?

[wegetthejobdone]

I'm trying to encourage my 9 year old to cook meals rather than cake. He does like cooking and can use the oven and hob independently (although he can't use the grill as its too high up), and he can chop veg safely. Its helping his confidence to cook by himself which he really needs at the moment.

What do your 9 year olds or a little older cook for the family? I'm particularly looking for simple meat based meals as I'm vegetarian so aware my meat based cooking is pretty limited.

I assume that none of the cynics on here have ever watched junior masterchef?!

plenty of children who can't cook as preteens - and plenty who can - much as some can play the violin and others can't - it is simply a set of skills and if they are passionate / have parents who are keen cooks then they will have a role model and someone who will help them learn those skills...

My almost 10 year old doesn’t do anything in the kitchen, she can get herself cereal that’s it🤔

She’s so clumsy I wouldn’t dare let her loose. Plus she’s a kid!

My 11 year old can make toast and cereal. Lol at the 9 year old who makes lasagne, tacos and burritos.

So if you’re making tray bake chicken

I have no idea what that is.

If you don’t like cooking yourself and can’t tolerate any mess then I appreciate you might feel differently.

I despise cooking. I buy most things pre-prepared.

But isn't that our responsibility? Who do you think is going to teach them to cook?

I don't know, a cookbook, cooking classes! It's not rocket science, just dreary grunt work!

@Crystal87

My 11 year old can make toast and cereal. Lol at the 9 year old who makes lasagne, tacos and burritos.

DD made tacos last night. Piss easy. DH supervised. She's 9 and chose the menu this week.

She can't wash her own hair properly and her handwriting is awful of that helps!

My dd can use the kettle, toaster and microwave. She can make beans on toast, boil an egg, whack chicken nuggets and chips in the oven. She won’t starve.

My 2 year can effortlessly cater a dinner party for 8

My 13 year old can make toast and has recently learnt to use the sandwich maker for toasties. That's about it.

What is this obsession with kids cooking family meals?? It's a myth that you have to teach them young or they'll become lazy feckless adults. They'll learn when they need to. I cooked nothing till I left home and even when I got married I didn't really cook much. I learnt because I had to. I'm a great cook now in spite of not being taught as a child.

Chill - I'd rather my child was playing than cooking dinner.

Ds 9 could make tea, coffee, or gravy, if I trusted him not to scald himself, microwave basics if I didn't think he'd put metal in it by mistake and blow the kitchen up. Sandwiches, wraps, bagels, cutting veg etc, if I trusted him with a knife. Things like heating beans, veg or soup on the hob, grilling things or sticking in the oven (turning on, pre-heating, looking at pack or googling for right temp and cooking times), but I panic he'd go wrong somewhere and burn the house down.

I often call him in to watch me, and explain as I go, and let him have a supervised turn, so he knows how to do the basics in theory, but practically I don't think he'll be ready to go solo for a long time yet. He still puts his shoes on the wrong feet sometimes, never mind making a roast dinner...

On the other hand, at around his age it was my job after school to peel and cut the potatoes for dinner, I could make tea, sandwiches and grill basic things like sausages, bacon, mini pizzas etc, and bake cakes and bread (by following my recipe book). Ds seems more imature, lacking common sense and focus, and is quite clumsy/accident prone.

*And I could use the microwave. I should maybe try getting ds to do a bit more himself...

Chill - I'd rather my child was playing than cooking dinner.

We're not sending them up chimneys. DD enjoys it and it makes her feel proud and happy. It is 'playing' to her. Plus she's contributing.

I don't understand why making tea and coffee is invariably one of the first things children are taught. Most kids don't even drink it and its one of the more risky tasks imo.

I was also expected to come home and start a meal at 7 or 8 yers old.

I often wonder if Mumsnet users are being real when they say their tiny kids can do these things. As a chef I know how quickly and easily I can be burned so I always supervise and make sure the task is age appropriate.. lasagne at 9? Is that including prep? I'm astounded! Lol

Watch Masterchef Junior, I know it has been criticised for giving children some information beforehand but it is still 8 - 13 year old cooking,

@AfterSchoolWorry

So if you’re making tray bake chicken

I have no idea what that is.

If you don’t like cooking yourself and can’t tolerate any mess then I appreciate you might feel differently.

I despise cooking. I buy most things pre-prepared.

But isn't that our responsibility? Who do you think is going to teach them to cook?

I don't know, a cookbook, cooking classes! It's not rocket science, just dreary grunt work!

That's really sad.

What is this obsession with kids cooking family meals?? It's a myth that you have to teach them young or they'll become lazy feckless adults. They'll learn when they need to. I cooked nothing till I left home and even when I got married I didn't really cook much. I learnt because I had to. I'm a great cook now in spite of not being taught as a child.

^^ This. I couldn't cook for shit before I left home. Now I love to cook and I'm pretty decent.

It's not my responsibility to teach my kids to cook at the age of 9.

It's my responsibility to make sure they know how to clean up after themselves, lay the table, stack a dishwasher, sweep/mop a floor, walk the dogs, clean a window, put on a load of laundry etc, so that when it comes to living on their own they realize this shit doesn't get done by magic!

I've two boys. They can learn to "cook" when they get to their teens. Its far more important to me that they get to a point where they automatically put dishes in a dishwasher, where they automatically put rubbish in a bin, or their clothes in a hamper, or walk the dogs.

Well DD sometimes washes up when it's someone else's turn to cook. She always clears her plate.

Why is cleaning 'good' and cooking 'bad'? They're all skills.

@Strokethefurrywall

What is this obsession with kids cooking family meals?? It's a myth that you have to teach them young or they'll become lazy feckless adults. They'll learn when they need to. I cooked nothing till I left home and even when I got married I didn't really cook much. I learnt because I had to. I'm a great cook now in spite of not being taught as a child.

^^ This. I couldn't cook for shit before I left home. Now I love to cook and I'm pretty decent.

Far better surely to teach them at an impressionable age the skills and knowledge of good, healthy nutrition via cooking. It’s also good fun. Do non- cooking parents not have children who make pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, pumpkin pie from the innards of your Halloween carvings, mince pies in Advent and the whole concept of field to fork?

So sad children are actually prevented from developing confidence and competence in an essential skill.

We do pancakes, but pumpkin pies and mince pies no.

If I had a child that was into cooking/baking and all that I'd send her to classes!

Not everyone is interested and that's ok.

Not prevented at all in my house. Like I said, my eldest cooks bolognese but has little interest in preparing anything else.

Ds2 would be hand fed grapes for life if he could get away with it.

Both like helping me bake muffins, both like peeling/chopping vegetables, but given that both like mopping the floor, cleaning windows and washing up, I prefer to get them involved in other essential life skills they'll need and they want to do right now.

There's plenty of time for them to learn to cook as they get older and, in my case, tall enough to reach stove top, microwave and oven.

Long time ago now but my dd at that age felt more confident doing mince based dishes as easy to tell it was cooked properly (I'm veggie too, she's not. I've been veggie my whole adult life so not very confident cooking meat myself)

So:

Bolognese sauce

Chilli - can be used in tacos, enchiladas etc

Shepherds/cottage pie

Stovies

Also fish dishes:

Fish pie

Fish cakes

Breaded fresh fish - for "fish and chips" made at home - we (siblings and I) used to love helping gran on Fridays (catholic) making the fish for the fish suppers. Good quality fresh white fish (Cod or haddock are the most popular but there are loads of others we tended to have hake as grandpa liked it) one sibling did the flour coating, another the egg coating, another the breadcrumbs
Served with proper thick hand cut deep fried (in a chip pan not a safety fryer - oil had probably been in there for YEARS ) chips and mushy peas and if you were really lucky you'd get to "steal" a pickled egg off a grownups plate!

God that brings back memories!

Pizza is easy

Stews/casseroles are actually relatively easy - throw it all in, but maybe you do the herbs/spices as kids can tend to go overboard - dd always thought that a pinch of herbs wouldn't add much flavour and keep adding more and more 

What DD could make at 8/9 and what she would make at 12 onwards were very different

This is also very true!

@CherryPavlova totally agree children are more capable than they're allowed to be in Uk (generally speaking)

Totally normal for me for children of 8/9 upwards to help out in the kitchen including (safe, supervised) use of hot and sharp things.

But among dds peers (she's nearly 20) there were more than a few of them who weren't ALLOWED to boil a kettle or peel a vegetable at 17/18 unsupervised!

And these were healthy, able and neurotypical children/young adults absolutely no reason they couldn't have been managing in the kitchen

@AfterSchoolWorry no harder than finding the patience and time to teach them any life skill surely? And that's our job as parents - to teach them how to be capable, confident and able adults. If you buy pre-prepared stuff you actually have even less excuses

@MrsTerryPratchett why are you peeling garlic? If you use a crusher the peel is naturally left behind or if crushing manually a broad knife, place on garlic sharp side away and down and whack it down! Garlic crushed, peel separated

Because I find that the garlic press is very hard to squeeze when you do multiple cloves without peeling. And when do you ever use one clove? Like an animal. And I'd rather peel than scrape out the press. Also we have multiple presses that work differently so we need to peel for some. And DD can't do side of the knife bashing (but she's almost there).

I want one of those concertina garlic presses that folds out but my birthday is a while away...

lasagne

pancakes were the first things dc were able to cook.
those fahita kit meals are good to start with.
my dc like doing shake and bake type chicken pieces. with baked potatos and sweetcorn.

At age 9 my two could make Bolognese and chilli. I had them chopping veg with a child safe knife from when they were wee.

They both love cooking and baking.

They're 11 and 13 and they each cook dinner once a week. We get a gousto recipe box and they pick something to cook.